Sheffield school places decision meeting pushed back to February

Sheffield Council has pushed back making a decision on controversial plans to increase school places in the city to February.

The council’s Cabinet was originally due to decide whether or not to approve plans to build two new secondary schools and to re-organise some primary school places in the south west and north east of the city to meet local needs next month.

But after receiving an overwhelming 1,400 responses to a consultation, the date has been changed to February 17 to give members more time to go through all of the comments. Coun Jackie Drayton, cabinet member for children, young people and families, said: “As a result of extending the consultation and the number of responses that we have had, we now feel that instead of taking the decision at January Cabinet as originally planned, we need more time to review all options. We want to reassure you that moving the decision to February still allows us to create the places we need in September and more importantly gives us the opportunity to review the consultation responses.”